Solid state cameras are well known in the art. Such cameras include (a) relatively inexpensive digital cameras suitable for home use, such as with a computer, and (b) relatively expensive digital cameras suitable for professionals and which have approximately one million pixels or more.
However, professional users of classical, 35 mm film cameras (or 80 mm or other classical film formats) cannot ready utilize their existing personal cameras with solid state focal planes. Typically, these professional users purchase a second, high quality digital camera as an alternative to their classical camera.
In the prior art, there has been some attempt to utilize a lens train to optically translate the film plane onto a digital focal plane through magnification or demagnification. However, this technique results in a bulky and unwieldy camera. This technique also inefficiently transfers optical energy between the film plane and the focal plane because of aspect-ratio differences. That is, for example, the 35 mm film format has a horizontal-to-vertical ratio of 3:2; while the digital focal plane format has a horizontal-to-vertical aspect ratio of 4:3. Accordingly, the optical conversion between these planes is not 1:1 in both axes. Typically, therefore, the prior art techniques only relay a portion of the image at the film plane.
Another problem with prior art techniques concerns optical correction. It is not, generally, a simple matter to relay an image to another plane without concern for optical correction. Rather, the whole optical path and aberration characteristics must be considered. In addition, the relay lenses should generally be of the same quality as the camera lenses. These factors, in combination with above difficulties, make the prior art technique expensive and impractical.
It is, accordingly, an object of the invention to provide apparatus that solves or reduces the above-described problems in the prior art.
Another object of the invention is to provide a digital camera back accessory that replaces the standard camera back so as to convert a standard film plane image to a digital image while capturing and relaying the entire film plane image to the digital focal plane.
A further object of the invention is to provide a method of converting a classical film-formatted camera to a digital camera.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide a process of manufacturing digital camera backs as an accessory to classical camera backs, whereby the digital camera back generates a digital image of the film-formatted image plane.
Still another object of the invention is to provide apparatus for converting high quality film-formatted cameras to digital cameras without loss of optical energy and quality.
These and other objects will become apparent in the description which follows.